Prepare for DAM

A dedicated Digital Asset Manager is the number one key to a successful implementation and your champion for ongoing user adoption. Develop a job description and assign a dedicated resource. This important role should not come as an afterthought. 

• Ownership
  Involved in the project from the beginning, the Admin is in charge of configuration and becomes your organization's DAM expert.
• Librarian
  Develops a metadata strategy, curates assets, streamlines asset acquisition, and oversees the asset lifecycle.
• User engagement
  Works closely with all users to assess workflow needs, then fine-tunes DAM processes and configurations to meet those needs.
• Governance
  Ensures users can access the assets they need and revoke access when needed. Responsible for protecting sensitive content.
• Help and support
  Provides first-level help and training for end-users. The main point of contact for the DAM Vendor's support team.

Everyone likes to have their voice heard, even if they're not directly involved in the project. Taking an inclusive approach from the beginning helps you better address your users' needs.

• Implementation team
  Keep it small — identify colleagues that have valuable input on the taxonomy, workflows, and functionality of your DAM. You’ll still want to consult with most business units, but that doesn’t mean everyone should join the implementation team.
• User stories
  Hold discovery sessions to understand digital asset workflows throughout your organization. Gather requirements from all teams that use the DAM. Document this in detail.
• Executive sponsorship
  Ensure your DAM project is supported to secure budget approval and allocate appropriate resources to the project.
• IT services
  While most cloud-hosted systems require very little IT involvement, self-hosted sites depend on a skilled IT team to handle the infrastructure.

Taxonomy is the process of naming and classifying things into groups within a larger system. In the context of DAM, a taxonomy is used to classify and organize digital files and the metadata that describes those files. Most importantly, a DAM taxonomy is what drives search. Good classification = good search results = happy users. 

• Search behavior
  Think about who your end-users are and how they will find what they're looking for.
• Organizational taxonomy
  Look at the words, phrases, and acronyms that are used within your organization and come to a consensus. Find out if there is a current taxonomy (i.e. corporate website or product descriptors) that can be leveraged for the DAM.
• Striking a balance
  Search will be ineffective if there isn’t enough metadata. If there's too much, the system becomes unmanageable and usability suffers.
• Workflows
  Consider how you might leverage metadata to help drive your digital asset workflows.

Preparing assets for migration is often the most time-intensive phase of a DAM implementation — and the easiest to procrastinate on — so start now! The old adage of garbage in, garbage out is very true when it comes to DAM. 

• Locate and aggregate
  Start gathering your files in one place as soon as possible. Ideally, files will be ready to import within a month of starting your DAM onboarding project.
• Resist storing everything
  By definition, an asset is "a useful or valuable thing". Therefore, your DAM should keep assets that have value to your organization. You don't need every single digital file to go into the DAM.
• Evaluate metadata
  Review your existing folder structures, assets, and metadata. Evaluate what you have against what you need and start planning your data migration. It's OK to start from scratch too.
• Filename conventions
  Filenames often don't get as much attention as they should. A consistent and useful filenaming convention has many benefits for your users. 

Dedicating time, effort, and resources throughout the implementation pays off. With a clear vision of your organizational needs, your DAM will evolve and be embraced by users — both now and into the future.

• Implement in phases
  Focus on a single, high-value use case for quick adoption, faster ROI, and improved efficiency. You can always add bells and whistles in Phase 2 once your users are familiar with the basics.
• Usability is key
  Make sure both you and the system are ready for launch. Consider a soft launch with a handful of key users first, before everyone signs on at once.
• Be loud, be proud
  Appoint a few DAM cheerleaders to help with organizational change management and encourage user adoption.  Let everyone know what's coming and how this will benefit the way they work.
• We're all in this DAM business together
  Join the DAM community. Attend webinars and conferences to learn from those who've traveled this road before you. Have a DAM chat with other organizations in your industry. Strive to be a DAM professional!